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How to make Pre-Season Training Interesting, Relevant and More Fun

I Hate Pre-Season Training

This is often the thought of players who are forced to undergo various fitness tests and long slow runs as part of a pre-season training and fitness programme.

Doing repeated doggies, shuttle runs and various circuits, with barely a ball in sight is enough to put most players off.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

As a Coach, you can make pre-season training interesting, relevant and more fun. Your players will be fitter, faster and stronger. More importantly, if they are willing, engaged and able to play, they will put more effort in.

Why Pre-Season Training Needs to be Turned on its Head

Do you start your pre season with an endurance fitness test? Your players turn up and do either the bleep test or the yo-yo test.

You then train them for a few weeks doing lots of endurance running and re test them before the season starts.

Is this interesting, relevant or fun?

Or are you just gathering random numbers?

I used to do exactly this. When I started working with London Welsh RFC 10 years ago. My plan was this:

Test the players

Develop an aerobic base.

Build up into intermittent endurance work with strength training.

Finish the last 2 weeks with speed training.

Re test the players

I checked this plan with some “expert physiologists at Brunel University” they thought it was a good plan.

Of course they did: in a laboratory situation this would look good as I was training to the test.

Over the last 10 years, working with hundreds of athletes I now realise that the situation should be reversed.

As an athlete I hated getting tested if I didn’t get the feedback, if I didn’t think it would help me fight better, or if there was no follow up training plan to help me improve.

Get Fitter, Faster and Stronger in Pre-season

As a coach you want your team to be Fitter, Faster and Stronger. But fit for what? You want them on the pitch ready to train and ready to thrive in competition when the season starts.

So, I look at developing 3 qualities:

Efficiency: Get them moving well and with control

Robustness: Get them able to do that under load, faster, further or heavier.

Resilience Get them able to sustain that quality of movement or load for longer.

It is demotivating as a player, and a waste of your precious Coaching time as a Coach.

How to Start Pre-season Training

Testing and evaluation are an important part of pre-season. But just telling players to run further or run faster to improve their test scores may only reinforce their bad technique, and could lead to injury.

My overriding consideration as a Coach is to give the players the tools to do the job.

Choose your tests carefully. If you are in a team field or court sport like Football, Hockey, Rugby or Basketball then the bleep test or yo-yo tests are relevant to the demands of the game. More so than a 1500m or 5km running (or even worse rowing) test to assess your endurance (more test detail here).

But, understand that these tests measure more than endurance. They measure your ability to: accelerate, brake and change direction. All of which are needed in your sports.

So, in conjunction with one of those tests, your first week would be well spent assessing the players’ ability to control their own body.

My motto is “Little things, done well, consistently.” If the players are given the tools to do the job, they gain in confidence and progress accordingly. You have 6-12 weeks to get players fit, you have to ask yourself

Easy to get players tired

Are you making them better, or just making them tired?

Over the next few weeks we will be looking in detail at a different quality that is needed in pre-season training:

Most importantly: they will be able to transfer those fitness qualities to the Game where it counts.

Comments

I currently coach a Great Britain F37 Junior International in athletics throws e.g. Discuss, Shot and Javelin. The tests we would undertake prior to his pre-conditioning stage would include tests such as the medicine ball javelin quadrathlon (Standing throw and Three step throw with a 1.5kg, 2kg & 3kg medicine ball). To monitor the development of his fitness and upper body strength. Along with the more traditional quadrathlon where he would undertake 4 exercises: Standing long jump, Three jumps, 30 metre sprint and Overhead shot throw. His results would be analysed by comparing his results with his previous results for this test. Once recorded His training begins and he will undertake the same tests 6-8 weeks after undertaking a range of conditioning ranging from general development of strength, mobility, endurance and basic technique. After undertaking this range of training he would undertake the quadrathlon tests again to indicate whether there has been any improvement/or not with regards to his level of fitness. Since working with this athlete I have learnt to individualise his testing and training due to the way he is feeling due being a young athlete and the pressures of undertaking exams and training for major competitions. I would also administer physical competency tests such as mobility and balance e.g. stork test and range of motion tests by undertaking exercises such as squats & lunges. Due to this athlete suffering from cerebral palsy. It is essential his affected side is monitored and trained as much as his unaffected side. Otherwise further muscle imbalances could occur and therefore cause him injuries. My greatest challenge is to gage his range due his cerebral palsy and the affected side going into frequent muscle spasms and his overall limitations due to his cerebral palsy.

I would initially screen the athletes movement to establish any strengths and weaknesses. I would test for any deficiencies in range of movement in both flexibility and mobility and for any postural and balance issues.

I would ensure before moving onto a training program that all weaknesses were addressed and a structured correctional plan was put in place.

Improving an athletes basic movement patterns and posture in the early stages will not only reduce the risk of injury with future overload but will also allow for a steeper progression curve and a higher peak performance.

I have this season also been put in charge of my local rugby clubs strength and conditioning. This means I was responsible for the clubs pre-season training and the players conditioning throughout the 2013/14 season. The director of rugby set me clear objectives that he wanted the boys to be fitter and faster than they were last season. The pre-season tests I undertook for the players included:

After the players undertook the above tests. Their training was based upon all round fitness, with a lot of focus spent on speed work being carried out from the start and throughout the season at training. Much too much dismay a couple of weeks into pre-season training the forwards coach pulled me to one side and told me that the players are doing too much speed work and not enough aerobic work. Speed work shouldn’t start until at least 8 weeks into pre-season. I was further informed when he played they used to run for 20 minutes without stopping. As alluded to by one of the early posts, when I tried to explain my methods of training to the forwards coach e.g. sports specific, player and position specific. I was told I was being too soft on them and I should drill them into the ground. So to further support Matt’s early post, it is vital to try and change/educate the mind-set of the so called old school coaches, to help create quality sessions where maximal performance is achieved by the players. Rather then sessions where poor technique is adhered to and players injure themselves.

Firstly would have to be movement screening. This would throw up any mobility issues and or imbalances that can be addressed before training intensity increases. These would be addressed in one on one sessions and integrated into the players individual warm up. I would then use some sort of VO2 max test like the yo-yo intermittent recovery test to gauge the players fitness levels and and a skin fold test for body composition. The VO2 max and skin fold tests would be repeated at the end of pre season.

Following from the reading and everything we covered today, I would start with a movement screen, to find out where the bodies imbalances are and what specific areas need to be focused on to develop and avoid injury. After the period of implementation, I would then re-run these movement screens to check for any improvement.
Originally I would have run some tests, Counter-Movement Jump or Squat jump, and also 20m sprint though gates and a multi-stage fitness test, however from todays session, I now wouldn’t!
After completing the movement screen, I would have a very good idea of individual areas that need to be improved and will then be able to implement them through the pre-season period, resulting in hopefully injury prevention through the pre-season and during the playing season, so therefore no need for Pre-Hab!

In the context of pre-season testing for football players, I feel some form of movement screen is very important and almost always forgotten! This is because there is often not enough time to assess each player and may be seen as worthless by some coaches, therefore ignored. A movement screen is important to assess imbalances between muscles and areas of weakness, therefore it is vital that one should be completed right at the very start to avoid injury, enabling athletes to get faster and stronger as pre-season progresses. From the movement screen, it is possible to individualise programmes for each player, focusing on strengthening and increasing the flexibility of certain muscle groups.

I feel it is important to identify where athletes are strong and areas that need improvement in all aspects off fitness, therefore after the movement screen has been completed, I would introduce a battery of tests for aspects of health and skill related fitness. These would include tests for aerobic fitness, muscular strength, muscular endurance, balance, flexibility, speed, agility, muscular power, co-ordination and reaction time. These would be relevant to the sport.

I coach both football and rugby at various levels of ability. In pre-season, each player would go perform the following tests:
– whole body mobility with emphasis on hips, glutes, hamstrings and ankles.
– 12minute cooper run (aerobic capacity)
– 20m and 40m sprint test (acceleration and sprint technique)
– broad jump after CMJ from 10/12 inches up (SSC)
– single leg standing toe touch test (ankle/knee/core stab)

This is going on the basis of the fact that I haven’t got a gym at my expense.

If I did have a gym, and assuming I am training players in football/rugby/invasion games, it would look like this:
– whole body mobility with emphasis on hips, glutes, hamstrings and ankles.
– Tabata on treadmill set to 20km/hr (12mph) until failure (anaerobic capacity)
– piston squat to failure (each leg, single leg stability and strength)
– 3RM on the following: front squat, deadlift, RDL, hanging high pull (2nd pull of clean)

Testing athletes for me would firstly involve postural analysis followed by rang of movement, Core strength and checking for any muscle imbalances.

When testing we test in each key separate area of the sport which is Swim, Bike & Run.

.Swim test is a warm up followed by a 400m time trial followed by a 200m time trial. These are best efforts whilst trying to maintain form. We can then work out Critical swim speed and plan swim sessions accordingly.

.Bike testing involves a warm up followed by a 20 minute all out TT on a turbo trainer then a cool down. We use either a Heart Rate Monitor or Power Meter or both. We can then set training zones including power and h/r zones.

.Run testing involves a warm up followed by a 3k time trial then a cool down. We again use a heart rate monitor to take note of h/r for 3k TT only. We can then set training zones including pace and h/r zones.

Testing is carried out every 6 weeks to ensure correct progression.

.Strength and conditioning I use a basic set of exercises carried out to failure including Press-ups, Inverted pull ups, Body weight squats, Prone hold or the Plank and calf raises. From this information we can identify weaknesses and design a programme to suit the athlete.

I have worked with athletes in a sports medicine clinic for many years (and out on the road in their sporting environments) and the needs of the patients/athletes I have seen have caused me to change my role/job description from that of physiotherapist to movement analyst.

Function specific movement analysis is now the cornerstone of what I do. The greatest service I can do for the athlete is to identify the underlying cause of their pain and pathology,injury risk or performance plateau. Primarily I look at:
1. Movement efficiency and functional patterning – and relate it to their sports training/performance and their activities of daily living.
2. Functional, active range of movement in the context of what they wish to do, and their physiology (e.g. hypermobility)
3. Structural versus functional restrictions and compensations.
4. Beliefs
5. Motivation
6. Learning effectiveness strategies.
7. Injury and performance risks.
8. Performance potential.

I find it extremely rewarding working with open minded and progressive coaches. Sharing information and learning from each other together as a team has to be the key to helping people optimise their function and performance (elite athletes, developing young athletes and recreational athletes – as well as corporate athletes!).

I loved the emphasis in the reading material on the fact that gaining strength is not just about lifting heavy weights, but using resistive, spacial and temporal loading in a functional way in the context of each individual’s lives.

Jill Cook always said that in terms of rehabilitation, we as physios/other medical therapists have a tendency to forget the importance of developing the muscle’s ability to adapt to changes in speed. I think you make this even clearer – we often omit accelleration, decelleration in COMBINATION with balance in a task specific way.

I am really looking forward to learning from you all. Thanks James for a great pre-course reading introduction to the Level 2 course.

The first thing I would do with the athlete is check posture and basic functional movement.
Some of the test which I would do are over head squats, lunge, straight leg raise and trunk stability push ups. After the testing and identifying any area of weakness, I would then put in correcting exercise in there own personalised program.
I come from a rugby background. So some of the pre-season fitness testing drills I would do are
T- drill
Mixture of different length sprints, doing back to the start and into a press up position.
10m sprints
40m sprints
Yo yo test
Also when doing different fitness training I would get players to do relative sprints to there positions. For example front 5 concentrating on short distant sprints to the back 3 working on long distance sprints.

Context: my coaching experience has been limited to youth rugby form early to late teens. In that context I would avoid a battery of test as basically they want to have fun and could quickly become disengaged if the pre season started with “boring stuff”. However, a test(s) that presents a challenge for the players ( and importantly for the coach) provides a valid means to monitor progress, by giving easily digestible feedback, could succeed.

(Whilst screening tests are valuable I would seek to remove them from the perceived “test” environment and incorporate them in the general conditioning sessions, due to the variable states of maturity, training experience, physical integrity.)

Based on the rationale that they are training to play I would seek to devise a test that mimics the demands of the game, which at this age is subject to frequent intervals, e.g. due to infringements, so separate aerobic tests may not be so relevant.

Following a defined warm-up, which can be replicated before the next test, a multifaceted test could be based on the t-test, with rugby specific body exercises at each station:-
Start: prone position into forward sprint . Brake.
Change of direction to lateral run, stop at first end cone and complete 10 press-ups
Lateral run to central position and squat and turn over a tackle bag end over end, firstly forwards, then running around to the other side to turn it back again, around the bag to the end cone.
Complete 3 double leg hops over a hurdle.
Lateral run to centre , roll over, get up and run backwards to start finishing in the “athletic position”
Gavin

I coach volleyball at recreational level. After this 4 weeks of reading in pre-season, I might do the following tests:
– 12 minute cooper run (aerobic capacity)
– Shoulder mobility such as internal and external rotation and lower limb flexibility would be assessed to identify possible areas where injury may occur
– Squat jump
– Vertical jump
– a movement screen, to find out where the bodies imbalances are to avoid injury
– Leg elastic strength tests
– lunges (including multi directional) to assess mobility and stability of the ankle, knee and hip
– the bleep test or the yo-yo test
– stability of the spine.

I am gonna to implement Pre-season Volleyball Program to make the session more interesting, relevant and more fun. My players will be fitter, faster and stronger. More importantly, if they are willing, engaged and able to play, they will put more effort in.

Pre-season testing
No matter what sport was being tested, I would start with a movement screen with further testing being dependent on and imbalances or weaknesses identified from the movement screen. Utilising exercise such as over head squats and single leg squats will show strength, posture, mobility and stability thought the movement and allow for a training programme to be adapt specifically to individual athlete’s. A movement screen could be used to track throughout the season, identifying risk of injury or imbalance.

Other pre-season testing should be made specific to goals of each athlete. An athlete who needed to improve their lower extremity power may use a squat jump and counter movement jump to display whether a training programme needs to be strength or power focused to cause this improvement. A standing broad jump would also be useful in observing improvements in power. Whereas an athlete training for strength may have their 3/5rep max tested as a baseline measurement.

Testing in this way focuses on improving performance with a training programme, using the tests to see whether a training programme is working rather than improving for the test and not performance.

Focusing on Rugby, I would start with a posture and movement screening at the start of pre season, to ensure that the player is aware early on of areas that need to be developed to help achieve improved posture, Balance, Stability and Mobility. As each player is different this test will be unique to the individual. The aim of this is to capitalise on the lack of contact of preseason where the body is in a better condition and prepare for injury prevention throughout preseason and most importantly the vigour of the upcoming season. This is to be a long term assessment throughout the season.

With various positions of rugby requiring different requirements of strength, speed and agility, the exercise programme will be divided into whole team activity and position specific as for example props and wingers do not need to condition themselves in the same manner. This way everyone is benefitting from the preseason in preparation for their position and the expectations are realistic and progressive. I would be looking to incorporate sand bags and tractor wheels tips and drags into the training as well as explosive short distant sprint work consisting of directional change, shuttles and progressional sprint work. Hurdle jumps including both one legged and two legged and body weight work would also be used.

I will also split training into gym based off field plans to coincide with the movement screening and specific areas for development in strength and power etc. Exercises will consist mainly of compound movements such as squats and dead lifts as it is rare that isolated muscle groups are needed of the game. I would be looking to incorporate functional training into this plan as I believe this will be more beneficial to the conditioning of each player.

I come from a triathlon background and coach track sessions weekly. I have used the Cooper test (12 minute run) with my athletes as this is a test valid for the discipline I am training them for and is a good indicator of muscular endurance and cardiovascular fitness. I am also able to assess technique with the onset of fatigue. I would like to use this test more often, perhaps every 6 weeks to assess progress. I would also now implement the test at the end of a session rather than at the beginning. This would be even more appropriate for the discipline as they will be starting the run whilst fatigued. I have used 1km times as a test also but this doesn’t seem as useful to so many athletes who might be doing very different distances.
Andy John

I would now definitely start by screening the athletes and finding out their individual strengths and weaknesses, and gauge their movement efficiency. I work with kids who are still growing, so i now realise how important this is.

I would perform a Functional Movement Screening test that would highlight any imbalances and weaknesses in a athletes movement patterns through 7 movement patterns including shoulder mobility and overhead squat tech . Then i would get them to perform both agility and aerobic tests before moving on to some robustness exercises and drills.

Coming from a rugby back ground, I feel that it is important to assess each individual as the needs and requirements for each position vary so much.

I love the idea of players completing a ‘self assessment’ this helps to gauge where the players feel they are with their conditioning.

Rugby has the added complications of needing both strength / power testing and speed / stamina testing. Which means the process can be quite long. I like the idea of standardizing testing to ensure that progress can be tracked accurately and progress can therefore be made.

I would start with FMS and I would also use NASM CEX to give me a full account of their imbalances and structural issues, however One of the key aspects of a good training or rehab program is making connections. Recognising that the body is a kinetic chain and we always need to be aware of how we are making those connections between all the links in the bionic chain. I would also like to screen the individual in a non sterile environment Instead, I think it’s important to keep in mind that athletes have three movement constants: the body, the ground, and the force of gravity. In any movement assessment, the general idea for me is to see the effect of gravity on the body and how the body effectively uses the ground to stabilize, produce, and reduce its force, which correlates to the daily activity of the athlete. The idea is to perceive their deficiencies and to evaluate them in the context of the athlete’s training background for example their age, development age, sport and what their external activities may be.

It is clearly hugely important to make the training resemble the sport as much as possible. There is no point asking the athletes to do an activity if they won’t do it in the ‘match’.

I would test for a variety of common problems in the sport. I wouldn’t be able to provide each athletes with a specific training programme so I would have to generalise the block of training for the entire group. For hockey I would test stability and mobility with a squat screen; an agility test and some flexibility/mobility tests for the hamstrings and shoulders.

The training block for preseason would then be looking to work the athletes in a way that would be similar to the demands of hockey – short intense bursts of activity – focusing on building in fundamental movement patterns that they might perform in a match – lunges, squats, change of direction sprints.

James – I would look to reduce the number of tests carried out which I did for this season. I would still use the Cooper Run (12 mins), Sprint test using speed gates 20m/30m, use the Jump Mat to measure leg Power, Concept 2 4mins O’Neills Test and some movement tests such as the single leg standing toe touch test. I might also use the quadrathlon tests which I have used before. With all the tests I would emphasise correct technique but also to get players to understand the relevance and importance in the game. Finally administer tests which players can replicate during season in pairs if they want to see if they are improving etc… without the need of the coach to be present unless requested. I think it is key as well as so many comments have alluded to on the blog to test and monitor athletes movements patterns and strengths and weaknesses as so many skills practices will be affected by their ability to carry out such movements and it may also prevent injuries.

Pre season testing.
As we are nearing the end of the current rugby season i am currently planning my pre season training plan so reading through these blogs and ideas have been of great help.
As a coach of youth age group rugby i think whatever pre season testing we do primarily has to be made enjoyable. I will not be getting them doing the cooper test for example! Yes we need to gain information about where they are at with their fitness and basic functional movements so as a coach i can help them improve in these areas and in turn there ability to play rugby well!
I would include 1 aerobic fitness test that was set in a competitive way pairing players of similar speed/levels to make it more interesting for them. I always find i get maximal effort and concentration this way.
I would test them on basic functional movements too, including overhead deep squats, lunge, pressup and rotational stability.
Lisa Llewellyn

Coaching Triathletes I conduct tests in all 3 of the sports. For swimming I use the Critical Swim Speed (CSS) test which involves a 400 & 200 TT with a short (5min) break between each. As part of the 400 swim I record the 1st 100 split. When entered into a CSS calculator I will get the following information.

1. The athletes CSS time which is their predicted 100 split from a 1500 swim.

2. Their pacing ability.

3. Their drop off rate which is expressed as them either being a petrol or diesel engine. This tells me what swim sets they should be doing.

Using the athletes CSS time for subsequent swim sets will improve their aerobic conditioning, swim speed and their pacing ability.

I introduce this test 4-6 weeks into the year after I have assessed their swim stroke and style and had a chance to correct any major faults in their stroke. I would look to retest every 6-8 weeks however the piece of equipment I use to set their CSS time when swimming can be adjusted up or down by as little as 100th of a second so there is scope for the athlete to adjust their times depending on how they are feeling or how the previous set went.

I would start with an athlete screening, so I could see the overall movement efficiency of the players. This will highlight their Musculo-skeletal weaknesses and strengths so I would know what areas need improving from during pre season. I would then look at tests more relevant to the sports I work with, those sports being rugby, hockey and cricket. Yo-yo and the bleep test are the tests we used to run in our cricket performance squads. I would also look at jumps and bounds (vertical and broad jumps) as well acceleration test. These tests would all cover endurance, acceleration, braking and COD which are all key components of these three sports.

I think what I’ve got from this is that is important to screen the athletes and keep on track of their progression in strength, coordination, balance, agility range of movement and all sort of other stuff.
As a climbing coach this come quite new to me to “lack of education in my specific sport”. I’ve never run a “test”. I was assessing athletes by seeing them climbing and understanding weaknesses by judging for ex. bad posture or lack of strength to stabilize the shoulder/scapula.
I’ll definitely consider to introduce it by doing simple things like a one leg squat or the “angel” against a wall. press ups and pull ups can be very helpful too to asses strength too.
I have to think more about this and come up with good and better ideas.

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